Black guineafowl

Black guineafowl
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Galliformes
Family:	Numididae
Genus:	Agelastes
Species:	A. niger
Binomial name
Agelastes niger (Cassin, 1857)

The black guineafowl (Agelastes niger) is a terrestrial bird of the Numididae (guineafowl) family found in humid forests in West-Central Africa. It is a medium-sized, black galliforme bird with a bare, orange-pink head and upper neck. As it inhabits dense, potentially inaccessible, regions of equatorial African jungle, little is known of black guineafowl behaviour or habits. By all accounts, it is a more reclusive, secretive bird when compared to the other, more sociable guineafowl species; i.e., researchers have been able to successfully observe and document far more information on the confident, gregarious and open grassland-dwelling helmeted guineafowl (Numidia meleagris), or even the more exotic vulturine guineafowl (Acryllium vulturinum). Compared to the black guineafowl, the aforementioned species (and most guineafowl) tend to be found in more exposed, dry savanna and arid open forest habitat, and congregate in larger communal flocks. Black guineafowl are seemingly very wary birds, living in smaller social groups than other guineafowl, and are constantly looking for signs of danger—the slightest hint of which will send the group darting into the bush to hide.